AMD FX8320 and FX8350 / GTX 680 - How the game became enjoyable

[Emuyen]

EDIT 25.05.2016: I've just apllied the Nvidia Driver Settings suggested by Mastif. They give me +5-7 more FPS on the ground. This is a massive improvement. http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/22623-mastiffs-set-and-settings/

 

 

Dear Community

 

I think this might be a good contribution for existing and new pilots.

 

I used to have below 20 FPS on the ground with a AMD FX8320 Octacore and a GTX680. During Dogfights (or when other planes were in the vicinity) the game started to stutter. The simulation is more CPU than GPU intensive.

 

The frustration was that high that I was very close to spend a lot of money for a new rig. 

 

After the following tweaks I managed to get 35+ FPS on the ground and 60+ in the air with high graphics settings.

 

All changes are done on the own risk. What I'm about to describe is the way it worked for me. 

 

Basic requirements:

• Good Motherboard with the most basic overclocking options (UEFI is the new BIOS) :-)
• A good and clean CPU Cooler.
• Some patience. It will pay off.

Step #1:

• Download CPUZ and HWMonitor. You will need it to monitor the changes and the heat.

Step #2:

• Go to your BIOS and disable the virtual cores (2, 4, 6, 8). Yes, you've read correctly. To play the game fluently you need to turn you octa to a quad. That's because the AMD FX8320/8350 has 4 real cores. Each core is then split to 2 virtual cores - which diminishes the single core performance. By disabling the virtual cores the single core performance (on AMD FX CPUs) increases. Since a simulation game needs maximum single core performance this will show immediate benefits.
• Go to CPU Z to see if it shows 4 cores and 4 threads (instead of 8 threads).

Now the game should already work with +10 fps and more better. This 10+ FPS are important because a game becomes enjoyable to the eye above 30 FPS.

 

If you own a FX8320/50K with an unlocked CPU clock, you can really very easily overclock you CPU which will boost your FPS tremendously. Since we disabled the virtual cores the heat dispersion will be less which allows to overclock with minimal adjustments to the CPU voltage (vcore).

 

Step #3:

• If you own a FX8320K: The FX8320K are basically "second quality" FX8350K. So you can overclock it easily from 3.5 GHz to 4.0 GHz without any changes to the voltage. Just change the clock ration from 17.5 to 20. No risk. No magic. Et voilà! Enjoy your FX8350.

Step #4:

• I won't cover the overclocking basics. There are tons of detailed OC-Guides out in the wide web. I will present just my results:
• Without any bluescreens and efforts I managed to overclock my FX8320K to 4.5 GHz with a vcore 1.375 volts. This just increasing the clock multiplier to 22.5. I reach max 55°C under load. This is a really cool overclock. :-)
• Optional: I've managed to push it to 4.7GHz just yet stable and 4.6GHz stable. For this I had to increase the voltage over 1.475+. This increased the temp of the CPU to 70°C under load. So I decided to go for the much cooler and almost silent 4.5GHz.

 

That's it. It sounds easy but it took me a lot of reading and testing to find the solution. Now it is common knowledge for the greatest community. :-)

 

Watch your six and fly dangerous,

 

Emuyen

 

Edit: Of course it will be an immense honor if the moderators will link this topic to the tutorial section. :-)

Edited May 25, 2016 by Emuyen